Ousama Game
King's Game

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Ousama Game!

Story: 7

A group of school students are given orders which they must complete within 24 hours. At first, the orders are childish like kissing each other and licking feet (foot fetish much!?), although it soon goes downhill for the students as the orders become increasingly harsh and violent. What I really like about the story is it's unpredictability; you never know what order is coming next and with the manga constantly giving slight hints about the true identity of Ousama, you'll want to know what happens next. Will the students kill one another to betray their friends? Or sacrifice themselves to save another friend? ... That is the beauty of the manga. The only main downfall is the pathetic which makes no sense.

Art: 7

I really liked the art in this manga, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. A lot of dramatic facial expressions to keep you guessing. The quality of the art is generally consistent, but not excellent.

Character: 5

Well, what can I say. Unfortunately this manga has very little character development and focuses solely on plot (none of them seem to have any family!) A lot of characters are dull enough to make you skip several pages of the manga. The main character is a very typical 'do gooder' who wants everyone to get along, which clearly isn't going to happen. Girls are portrayed as damsels in distress or psychopaths. There was only one character I liked.

Enjoyment: 9

I enjoyed this way too much. I'm a sucker for manga where students kill each other so this was right down by street. Blood and gore is always great to see!

Overall: 7

Not a bad manga at all. The low scores on here tend to be due to the terrible ending, but definitely give it a shot if you're interested by the prospect of students killing each other, provided you can put up with some gimmicky and annoying characters.

First of all, Ousama Game is a manga title that is not of yet completely translated in English. The translation group only did 10 chapters. I had the "privilege" of reading this manga in Chinese, which had complete translations.

Having completed this manga, I don't blame the English translators for abandoning this manga. Not one bit.

Granted. This manga starts with an amazing set up. A class of high-school students receive mysterious instructions to participate in the King's Game. If somebody does not do as told, he will die a gruesome death. Until chapter 10, everything looks great. The artwork is cutesy, the characters seem fine, ... but most of all, readers are entranced by the marvelous story.

Then, everything took a downward-spiral. Soon, it became apparent that the author did not plan ahead. Plot holes appear here and there, as well as widening in magnitude. It gets to a point where I want to just quickly finish the manga and see the ending, whether good or not, for myself. Readers get the bad feelings that the mangaka will never come up with a plausible conclusion for the unnatural event that are occurring.

AND guess what, I was right. The manga ends in a spectacular failure. It comes up with the most ridiculous explanation. It was truly a "in your face" moment for me.

All in all, it is a superb decision for the translators to not follow up with this manga.

Story: 3
Art: 8
Character: 4
Enjoyment: 6
Overall: 4

note: if we only reads the first 10 chapters, I might even give it a 8/10.

One day, the students of a high school class all recieve the same text message and suddenly get caught up in a dangerous game. Everyday, an order is issued, and if it is not obeyed within 24 hours, the student who was given said order will die.

Ousama Game could have been an average, but somewhat enjoyable, 'deadly game' manga among many others. It is, however, not the case, and shows perfectly how a story that starts in a mediocre way can end up being a catastrophe.

Story:

Ousama Game doesn't have a particularly impressive start. The first orders given by the Ousama mostly revolve around kissing or ... touching people of the opposite sex, which makes it hard to take the story seriously, even though people are actually dying because of it.

But as silly as the story may seem, it still manages to catch the interest. Almost as soon as the manga starts, we are confronted to the mysteries of the Ousama Game. Who is behind it? Why is it happening? How? Considering the fact that the story is not really interesting at that point, it is probably the desire to see those questions answered that keeps us reading.

However, as the story starts becoming more serious, it feels like we are only getting farther from the answers to the mystery. And this is where a scenario that was already unsteady completely falls apart. The revelations, as well as the final plot twist, make absolutely no sense, especially when taking into consideration all the things that happened previously in the story. In conclusion, after finishing reading Ousama Game, you are left with a feeling of incomprehension, as you wonder whether the author actually thought about his story before writing it.

Characters:

This manga does have a large cast of characters if we include all the students of the class. Of course, some of them are never really developped, but those who are are mostly uninteresting or annoying.

This seond category of characters seems to be divided into two sub-categories: the 'nice' characters and the 'bad' characters. There isn't really much room for normal people, in fact, the characters being either selfless people who are ready to die for their friends anytime, or selfish and cruel people who would probably let everyone die if it could allow them to survive.

In other words, no one is really likable, and most characters have motivations that are either not explained or simply not understandable.

Art:

The art is mostly average, with some inconsistency in its quality. While it is sometimes quite good, it often seems to become a bit messy in certain parts, especially when the characters have more intense facial expressions.

Enjoyment:

The story wasn't particularly enjoyable from the start, and if it tried to become more interesting towards the middle, it was to eventually end up falling into the abyss of stupidity and nonsense. As short as this manga may be, I would not recommend it, even if you enjoy this genre.